#lloigoroth

Back in the spooky catacombs, Black Knight finally remembers that he has a lightsaber. He wrestles loose of Red Guardian, original modern Black Knight, and Baron Zemo and pulls out his lightsaber.

This has the added bonus that now he can see. This has the downside that now he can see the grim specters that are trying to eat him.

Nathan Garrett, Black Knight: "Surrender, Dane Whitman... and we will wait until you are dead -- to consume your flesh!"

Dane doesn't quite like that proposal so starts wildly swinging his lightsaber at them. I don't think he manages to hit a single one, though. They're nimble for being so emaciated.

Unfortunately for Dane, all that effort split his stitches and re-opened his Raza-wound.

Double unfortunately, the smell of fresh blood drives the three shambling undead into a frenzy. They lunge at him and Red Guardian manages to sink his teeth in through the chain mail or whatever Black Knight has going on.

Elsewhere, in the catacombs, Vision is still being aggressed by Necrodamus and Amenhotep. Their magical nature lets them attack him when he's intangible. But he finds that his SOLAR BEAM (shot out of the eyes instead of the usual forehead blast) is effective against them. Creatures of the shadows abhor sunlight.

But it's not enough to defeat them.

Vision: "It would appear that this battle has resulted in stalemate. I can accomplish nothing by continued combat. Logic, then, would dictate -- a strategic withdrawal."

And then he just fucks off, intangibling through the ceiling.

Elsewhere, the Star Stalker and Count Nefaria double team Hercules. And not in the fun way. He gets some good hits in but it doesn't matter. Every time he makes headway against one, the other gets him. And in the end, they beat him unconscious and get ready to eat him.

Elsewhere elsewhere (these catacombs are roomy), Crystal desperately struggles against Inferno.

Since he's a fire guy, she tries to put him out with ice. But he's too hot to be stopped by that. And I guess she can't just control him with her power over fire. It would be too convenient if that worked.

Since ice isn't working, Crystal decides to collapse part of the roof of the catacombs to bury Inferno and then freezes over the pile of rubble to try to seal him underneath.

But the iced over pile of rubble steams and Inferno's hand bursts free.

Like a horror movie monster, he's coming back for one last scare!

Elsewhere elsewhere elsewhere, Sersi is fighting Nebulon.

Her eyebeams just make him stronger as he absorbs the energy from them. So Sersi changes tack and uses her matter transmutation abilities and turns Nebulon Zombie into a non-zombie rat.

But he just turns back to his bipedal undead state.

Nebulon: "An interesting form. However, I prefer my own."

So Sersi tries a couple more times, just in case!

She turns him into a pig and a frog. Unfortunately, she doesn't turn him into a newt so I can't make the obvious joke.

Anyway, Nebulon's shapeshifting hard counters Sersi's transmutation powers.

It is funny to have Nebulon just POIT! back to normal. But I feel like compared to the ending of the previous issue where the Legion of the Unliving just swarmed over the Avengers, no fancy powers, no frills; we've kind of gotten back to the usual superpower battles.

The horror vibes are slightly less immaculate.

Anyway. Grim Reaper is still watching things play out on his scrying flame and then Vision comes up behind him and does him a startle.

One wonders whether there's a hot key for closing all of your tabs on the scrying flame.

Vision: "I have come to attempt to reason with you." Grim Reaper: "Synthetic fool! You shall suffer the torments of --" Vision: "Enough. Your power over me is limited. As I am not truly alive, I cannot die. I am incapable of fearing you as you desire."

Vision is just here to poop on Grim Reaper's entire parade.

Grim Reaper says shut up, his revenge is totally logical and cool and he's going to get revenge on the Avengers for murdering him.

Vision: "You were not slain by the Avengers, Reaper. You took your own life. Thus it is illogical to assign blame to any other than yourself." Grim Reaper: "Liar! I was murdered!" Vision: "Incorrect. I was present at the event. You learned to your death, consumed with guilt for the evil you had done." Grim Reaper: "I... I... remember... AAAAA!"

Suddenly, in the catacombs, the Legion of the Unliving stops trying to murder the Avengers and turns their gazes upwards.

Undead Black Knight: "The Reaper..." Count Nefaria: "... has lost his grip on our souls..." Nebulon: "We are free!" Inferno: "Free to seek..." Unquiet Dead: "... VENGEANCE!"

And the Legion leaves the catacombs for the Reaper's fire TV room and start tearing him apart despite his demands for them to obey him.

Despite the conceit that the new Legion of the Unliving were all people who would want revenge against the Avengers, they weren't like-minded peers of the Grim Reaper. They were his thralls. And even the ones that did have beef with the Avengers are far more mad about their peaceful afterlife being disturbed.

AND VISION JUST STANDS BY AND WATCHES. Like he said. He don't give a fuck about any of this.

The Avengers chase after the Legion and then just stop and watch them beat the shit out of Grim Reaper.

Partially out of shock but also I think they realize that there's just nothing they need to do here.

And then a giant hand crashes through the wall and grabs Grim Reaper.

Lloigoroth: "You have disappointed us, Eric Williams!"

You know.

I actually appreciate this happening.

It adds a touch of 'low budget practical effects' to this horror story. Why have an Elder God be a hand with eyes in the fingertips and a mouth in the palm? Where does that arm go? Eh, who cares. The important thing is that we can portray it with a little make-up and forced perspective.

Someone just sticking their hand in front of a camera and Grim Reaper's actor going aaaiiieee and pretending to be grabbed.

Wonderful.

Lloigoroth: "You have the will to power -- but not the grasp to retain it! We are displeased."

And then Lloigoroth eats Grim Reaper with his palm mouth.

Not sure how they did the practical effects on that but it looks neat.

Lloigoroth pulls his hand self back through the castle walls, the castle starts collapsing, and an interdimensional vortex just happens to happen and flushes the Avengers back to that cave from the first part of this story.

And the Avengers really have a 'well, that happened' attitude towards it.

'Huh, we're back where we started.'

Black Knight: "Who wants coffee? I'm buying."

Like, really. How else do you react to everything that happened?

Vision tries to make a point that Grim Reaper caused his own death by deluding himself and then caused his afterlife undoing through that same tendency to indulge in delusion but none of the rest of the team are interested in pondering the character beats of it all.

They just want to be done with one of the weirder nights in Avengers history.

I have to say. Len Kaminski did a good job on this fill-in three-parter. A Grim Reaper story I don't want to endlessly complain about. With some good horror vibes and some silly elements because this is comic books.

Next week, we're back to alternating between East and West Coast Avengers. And the Avengers West Coast is crossing over with Wolverine. For some reason.

Anyway, the Grim Reaper gets right to fulfilling his end of the bargain with Master Hand.

We next see him on Eastern Flight 4-1-7 which has hit some rough weather heading into LaGuardia airport.

4-1-7 has also hit some weird, eldritch phenomenon because with a plume of black smoke, Grim Reaper appears on the plane.

Grim Reaper: "Do not fear me, mortals. I bring you the gift of peace. The peace of the grave."

Then he stabs his stupid scythe arm into the roof of the plane and carves a big hole in the fuselage.

Plane crashes, as airplanes are known to do when there's suddenly a big hole in it. Everyone aboard dies. And the Grim Reaper strolls out of the wreckage, adds some flourishes to the scene, and then fucks off.

And considering the flourishes he added...

He made a weird enough crash site that LaGuardia calls the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA very weirdly boots the problem up to the Pentagon. And the Pentagon, perhaps wisely, makes it the Avengers' problem.

Crystal HAD been wondering why this was Avengers business. Until she saw it.

The Avengers land and start inspecting the site with FAA Inspector Henderson.

Vision intangibles into the wreckage. Already noting that damage to the airplane's hull seems deliberate.

Hercules and Sersi start shifting rubble. Sersi taking a moment to discuss with her Olympian bud how fragile human life is. Sometimes she forgets. Being an eternal Eternal.

And Black Knight looks around for like five seconds before finding a random piece of wreckage that's glowing with an awesome power.

What is your Luck stat, Dane? It can't be good because your life sucks so much. Is it an extremes thing? You have the worst life and great success at random searches?

Also, Vision successfully finds the airplane's black box from within the wreck.

Meanwhile, Crystal was never shown to have been helping at all, on panel. She has elemental powers! She could have been moving so much rock! Off-panel!

Sometimes I feel like the book doesn't know what to do with Crystal.

Anyway, the Avengers ask to take the glowing wreckage and black box back to Avengers Mansion to examine with their top-of-the-line very cool facilities.

Inspector Henderson acknowledges that this is very not procedure and he could get in trouble with the FAA but also he's a bit character who doesn't even have his own page on Marvel wiki. He doesn't even have a first name! So he's not going to stand in their way. He gives them his blessing to take stuff from the crash site.

Also. I just realized that once again Black Widow sent the team off on a mission while staying at HQ and sitting on her thumb. She's the de facto boss of the team while Captain America is out but she doesn't feel like part of the team because she never goes out and does anything.

It's weird how this pattern is developing.

In the field, Black Knight is taking point, bringing the team over to see the black box and asking Henderson if they can please remove it from the scene of the crash. Black Knight feels like he's the leader of the team because he's with the team. Black Widow feels like. What an actual boss would be more like, actually. But that's not how superhero comics tend to work. Reed Richards goes out with the team. Professor X would if he could so as soon as he gets a hover wheelchair or a working spine he does. Captain America leads from the front.

So this is a weird situation where Black Widow is on the team but never does anything with them.

I wonder if even in the year of 1992 comic writers are quailing in horror at having three whole women on one superhero team and that's why Black Widow stays home.

Anyway, while the Avengers are at the crash site, Grim Reaper is still on his shit. But he's gone from planes to trains. Standing on the subway tracks under Manhattan, he opens up a "vile vortex" that swallows the entire F-train.

And without even rule of threeing with a car, bus, or boat, Grim Reaper declares his preparations for his latest nonsense are complete.

Later, at the Avengers HQ lab, Black Knight examines the black box and tells Vision that he's getting a vibe of black magic from all this.

Vision decides that despite having been married to Scarlet Witch, he doesn't believe in magic,

Vision: "It is my hypothesis that what humans often term 'supernatural' merely involves the manipulation of natural forces currently unknown to science. Therefore, I find the apprehension with which humans approach such matters... puzzling."

Not an unheard of opinion in Marvel. Hank Pym is on record that he doesn't believe in magic or gods and that its all explainable with science.

But its a very funny opinion for Vision V Visionson to have when he magically dry humped fake babies into Wanda once.

Anyway, Black Knight's concerns are immediately validated as the black box starts emitting black smoke that Vision notes with intrigue is basically vantablack, not just your average run of the mill normal smoke. The smoke is absorbing all light.

Also, the smoke turns into a giant-sized Grim Reaper. And yes, spooky cover face was Grim Reaper and he does look almost cool now. The scythe hand is still stupid.

AND HE HAS A GRIM ANNOUNCEMENT TO GRIMLY ANNOUNCE.

Grim Reaper: "AVENGERS! Too long have you escaped punishment for your crimes. I have returned from the lightless abyss to have my vengeance upon you. I, the man you murdered -- the Grim REAPER. I await you at the scene of your crime -- in the caverns in which you killed me. Seek me -- if you dare. Vision, channeling his best Spock: "Fascinating."

It's not unusual for villains to blame heroes when they suffer the consequences of their own actions. But this is a particularly funny example. Because Grim Reaper instigated that encounter by kidnapping Vision and Wonder Man to put in a blender. And then he ran into a chasm while trying to run from the truth that he had idealized his memories of his brother.

This isn't even the right team to get revenge on. It was the West Coast Avengers who were in that story. Hawkeye, Tigra, Iron Man, Wonder Man, Mockingbird, and Hank Pym. The only one on the East Coast Avengers right now that had anything to do with what happened that day is Vision.

You're dragging Thor, Hercules, Sersi, Crystal and Black Knight into what is basically a grudge match between you and Vision. This vendetta could have been a back-up story.

But that's just how things go with Grim Reaper. The first time he attacked the Avengers, Hank Pym and the Wasp were the only Avengers on the team that were relevant to his revenge. Hawkeye was collateral and Black Panther was wrong place wrong time. He should have been mad at Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, too. But they weren't around. Oh, and he should really have been mad at Baron Zemo and the Enchantress. Zemo was dead but c'mon, man, declare vendetta against the Enchantress. It will be funny.

Anyway. Got on a tangent.

Black Knight and Vision tell the team about the Giant-Sized Grim Reaper and they discuss what to do.

First of all, they need to get Crystal up to date. She's new here. Didn't read all the files. Who is Grim Reaper?

Vision Explains It All. Brother of Wonder Man. Blamed the Avengers for his death, even when Wonder Man came back to life. Died trying to get revenge. Came back as a zombie.

The Avengers would love to know more about that undead thing but the West Coast Avengers are out of contact right now. Probably busy. I hear they're doing a crossover with Wolverine.

The concern here is that Grim Reaper has seemingly gotten a big power boost. Giant skulls aren't naturally occurring scenery. And also making a big holographic projection of himself was probably pretty impressive, too.

Hercules argues that the best strategy is to go and punch Grim Reaper a lot. And Sersi agrees that they should go deal with him soon. And Vision concurs.

Black Knight: "That's easy for you guys to say. None of you has much of a grasp of the concept of death."

Hey. Don't be rude to your immortal and technically non-alive teammates, Dane.

Also, I can't help but note that Black Widow is not at this meeting. She's really being as uninvolved as possible.

I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes in this era. Because it's not just a Harras thing. Fill-in writer Kaminski is also contributing to the pattern.

ANYWAY.

The Avengers (minus Black Widow who probably had some serious paperwork to handle) land at the cave where Grim Reaper died that one time.

Since it's a cave and since Hercules is with the team, Hercules is reminded of the time he descended into Hades (the place) and fought Cerebus (the dog). Despite Black Knight trying to hint that he doesn't want to hear this story again, Hercules joyfully goes into a full rendition of it to accompany their spelunking.

Meanwhile, new slightly cool looking Grim Reaper summons up his most powerful familiars to attack the Avengers.

LEVEL ONE SUMMONS.

Well, rats and bats and snakes and spiders. Like on the cover. But they're not the actual creatures. They're magical constructs.

Which makes them more of a challenge for the team and less messed up to have superheroes punching small critters. And also makes Sersi useless because magic is not, in fact, molecules that she can manipulate.

It's always kind of funny to see the hoops that get jumped through to prevent too powerful a power from breaking the plot.

Vision: "I theorize that these creatures are magical in nature. Thus, our rather ineffective efforts to combat them become more easily understood." Sersi: "Marvelous. Do you have any constructive suggestions?" Vision: "Insufficient data."

Hah.

I choose to believe that's robot sass.

Anyway, Crystal reflexively blasts some of the magic snakeys with fire and her fire blasts them to bits. The most success that any of the Avengers have had.

Fire is pretty broadly effective, it's true.

Both werewolves and vampires can't stand the stuff. Neither can Frankensteins or mummies. A whole monster mash would quail at a waved torch.

Black Knight, hero protagonist of the team, immediately comes up with a sure-fire way to capitalize on Crystal's ability to make fire.

What if... she made, like, just a whole bunch of fire? A shit ton? What if she cast Fireball, in an enclosed cave?

When that might be dangerous. If the team wasn't comprised of two immortals, the avatar master of all four elements, a robot, and a guy who dresses as a k- okay I see the possible downside in this plan.

BUT SO HAS BLACK KNIGHT, HERO OF THE BOOK.

He yells for Vision. And thankfully, Vision immediately grasps the plan and doesn't need it explained to him. I'm still a little peeved that Crystal had to be told to do a lot of the attack that actually works.

Feels like we're in the bad ol' days again of Hank having to tell Wasp when to use her powers.

Vision intangibles over to Black Knight and then supertangibles to his diamond hard form and spreads his cape so Black Knight can crouch behind him and be protected from FIREBALL.

FWAASSSHH

A DnD night at Avengers Mansion would be fun for a low-stakes character beats plot. I know that's kind of what the new (2026) Strange Tales book is but that's not Avengers.

Anyway. The cave has been blasted clean of varmints but the Avengers don't even get a moment to rest. Despite big fwaassshh really taking it out of Crystal.

The ground starts rumbling and the cave is suddenly A LOT more roomy so that Giant-Sized Grim Reaper can tower above the Avengers swinging his stupid scythe arm around and creating an interdimensional vortex.

Grim Reaper: "Resistance is futile, Avengers. You can no more fight me than you can stop the tides, or battle time itself. I am death incarnate! And I shall have my vengeance!"

And said interdimensional vortex swallows up the Avengers while Giant-Sized Grim Reaper laaaaaaaughs.

Hmm.

Tentatively speaking... I'm not hating this so far. Maybe because it's a fill-in story or maybe because Grim Reaper has just died so much that he's suffered major motive slip. But I wanted him to get a new trick pony or a new dimension and somehow becoming a generic muhaha evil guy doing evil for the sake of evil is making him more palatable than if he were raving about his brother.

Also, I think this is where Grim Reaper's tendency to make weird bargains with maleficent entities and elder gods starts. He makes a deal with Mephisto to become the new psychopomp when it seems like all the Valkryies have died. And he made a deal with an elder god in the recent-ish 2025 Vision and Scarlet Witch series.

The man just hates so hard that he sells his soul to any takers. In modern comics, it does seem like his obsession with his brother and with Vision is really just an excuse to keep reveling in hatred and evil.

Good for him. He may dress like a pirate flag but he's living his best worst life.

But this is just my impression one issue into a three-part story.

And I'm noticing things even with this fill-in story that's making me wonder about Harras' direction for the book.

Well, I'll see how things play out.

Next week, we're still in Avengers and still in this story.